How to Link AdWords and Analytics

I recently completed an AdWords Training in NYC and one topic that required some extra explanation and walk-through was actually linking AdWords and Analytics accounts. When first starting an AdWords account, this is a step that I highly encourage from the start. It only takes 5 minutes and is super easy. If you have an account already (maybe it’s been running for a while and you’ve just been given management), then checking to see that everything is linked correctly is an important step. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have AdWords and Analytics properly connected and “talking”. Your future optimizations absolutely depend on it!

Before we go any further, though, make sure that you have Administrative access to BOTH the AdWords account and the Google Analytics account with the same email log in. This is important since you can’t do squat with Admin access to only one or the other.

Step 3: Select the account that you want to link your AdWords account with. You should see a screen similar to what is seen below:

Step 4: Click “Data Sources”.

Step 5: In the next screen, you’ll see the option to “Link Accounts” – click this button.

Step 6: You will be presented with a pop-up that asks if you want to manually tag your URL’s or enable auto-tagging. I highly suggest auto-tagging.

Step 7: Choose the profiles where you’d like your AdWords data to “feed” into. You can choose multiple profiles. After making your selections, click Continue.

That’s it! Your AdWords data is now feeding into your Analytics account, giving you the ability to see Paid Search traffic in your regular reports.

But now that you have AdWords “talking” to Analytics, what about the opposite? You can see certain Google Analytics data points in the AdWords dashboard by following these simple steps.

Step 1: Go to My Account and click “Linked Accounts”.

Step 2: On the left hand side of the screen, select “Google Analytics” under Linked Accounts.

Step 3: Click “Edit” and select the account, then the profile that you’d prefer to see in AdWords. Simply click “Add” located on the right of the profile name. Make sure you click “Save”.

Step 4: If you want to start seeing data in your AdWords dashboard, simply add them as a Column in “Customize Columns”. Click “Customize” in your Campaign, Ad Group or Keyword tab.

Step 5: Then select the actual data points you’d like to see in the dashboard by selecting “Google Analytics” and clicking “Add” next to each chosen metric.

(Drumroll please) Taa-daa! Your AdWords data is now tracking in AdWords and certain Analytics data points are visible in AdWords. This makes the decision-making process much more streamlined and easier to accomplish. Here is a handy post that we wrote a while back that can help if you need some AdWords and Analytics troubleshooting.

is complicated! However it isn’t a new requirement. The fact that one may ALSO associate Google Analytics with Google AdWords, in other words, that there is two-way association, never occurred to me! Thank you, Sarah Peduzzi, for mentioning that feature in your post.

Tagging IS one of the newer features of online display advertising with Google. I recall having seen it for maybe a year, approximately. I was browsing through the Google Webapps Store last night, and noticed a Google-made Chrome browser extension that would facilitate proper link tagging for AdWords. I haven’t tried it, am not certain if it is effective, but just wanted to mention its existence, as thanks for telling me something I didn’t know prior to reading this post.

P.S. If you need the full URL, feel free to ask, and I’ll post it as a reply, here or via Twitter.

http://gooplex.wordpress.com/ Ellie Kesselman

Sorry, there was an oversight in my comment… okay, let’s be honest, an ERROR
Link tagging has been extant since at least 2008. It isn’t recent at all, which is what I wrote.